AUBURN — No one is happy with where Auburn is offensively this season, least of all Gus Malzahn.

The Tigers are averaging 366.9 total yards, 149.9 rushing yards and 26.5 points through 10 games. All are on pace to be the program’s lowest totals since Malzahn became the head coach in 2013 and among the lowest of his 13 years as collegiate coach, which also includes stints at Arkansas, Tulsa and Arkansas State.

This past Saturday, Auburn mustered only 274 yards of total offense, 107 yards on the ground and just one touchdown in a 27-10 road loss at rival Georgia.

With only two regular-season games — one of which is on the road at No. 1 Alabama — and a bowl remaining in the 2018 season, the Tigers may already be out of time to improve those averages much, if at all.

But Malzahn is “very confident” that Auburn’s offense will be better in 2019, even if this season will go down as a major disappointment.

“We expected to do better. I think that’s kind of common sense and fair to say,” the head coach said Tuesday. "The majority of our guys are coming back next year. That’s going to be a really good thing as far as some of the growing pains we’ve experienced this year. Are we happy with where we’re at offensively? No. That’s common sense. But you’ve kind of got to see it as its entirety.”

The results during the 2018 season have not been positive. Especially coming off a 2017 campaign where the Tigers averaged nearly 34 points per game, produced a 3,000-yard passer in Jarrett Stidham and SEC Offensive Player of the Year in running back Kerryon Johnson, and won the SEC West.

Even with Stidham and leading wide receiver Ryan Davis back along with offensive coordinator Chip Lindsey, the offense has struggled more than it has in any season since Gene Chizik’s final year as head coach in 2012.

Auburn’s offense has scored more than 24 points only three times in nine games against FBS opponents, and more than 30 points just once. It has been held under 150 rushing yards in all but one of those nine games. Stidham’s completion percentage has dropped from 66.5 percent to 61.3 percent, and his yards per attempt from 8.5 to 7.1.

Malzahn pointed to youth and inexperience as the biggest issues Auburn has failed to overcome, specifically on the offensive line, where Auburn had to replace four senior starters in Braden Smith, Austin Golson, Casey Dunn and Darius James with three juniors who had started only 20 combined games (Prince Tega Wanogho, Marquel Harrell and Mike Horton), a graduate transfer from UMass (Jack Driscoll) and two centers who had never started a game before (Kaleb Kim and Nick Brahms).

“We were very inexperienced up front, which we’ve talked about before,” Malzahn said. “We played a whole lot of freshmen, more than we’ve ever done, and we’ve experienced some growing pains throughout the season.”

But Malzahn believes the fact that Auburn has had to lean so heavily on so many inexperienced players will lead to a bright future for them next season, especially at the skill positions.

Between running backs JaTarvious Whitlow and Shaun Shivers, and wide receivers Seth Williams and Anthony Schwartz, among others, 52.7 percent of the team’s total offense and 58.6 percent of its 29 offensive touchdowns have been produced by either true or redshirt freshmen.

“Those guys are making plays in big-time games in big moments,” Davis said. “Even though the outcome isn’t really what we wanted, but it’s good to see those guys get that experience, make those plays and give coaches confidence going into next year. They definitely have something to work with. The guys that are left behind to carry on and pick up where we left. Hopefully they improve on what we definitely did this year.”

Davis, a senior, is the only skill player who is for sure not returning next season. Everyone else has eligibility remaining. The same is true on the offensive line (where Auburn has zero scholarship seniors), though that group certainly needs to be improved significantly or added to with outside talent.

There could be a question at quarterback, as Stidham is a fourth-year junior who has already graduated and could decide to depart for the NFL Draft — something he considered after last season — even after a down year statistically.

“I plan to be living and breathing, hopefully, God willing. But I don't know yet,” Stidham said when asked about his plans for 2019. “I'm focused on Liberty and I'm focused on the rest of this season. I haven't really given it much thought yet.”

But no matter who Auburn’s quarterback is next season — Stidham; returning reserves Malik Willis, Joey Gatewood or Cord Sandberg; incoming freshman Bo Nix; or a graduate transfer (Clemson’s Kelly Bryant? Alabama’s Jalen Hurts?) — Malzahn said “we’re going to be better on offense, and I’m very confident that we’ll be really good on offense next year.”

And Malzahn said he has “no doubt” he’ll be the head coach leading that charge in 2019, even if there is at least a portion of the fan base that might rather see someone else. Last week, after a win over Texas A&M, athletics director Allen Greene called Malzahn “our coach of the future,” and with him being in the first year of a seven-year, $49 million contract that carries a buyout of more than $32 million, that’s unlikely to change.

The offensive coaching staff might, but if it does, that’s a question that won’t be answered until after the season, which continues Saturday with a senior day game against Liberty.

“I think at the end of every year,” Malzahn said, “you sit back and you evaluate everything and you access everything, and we’ll definitely do that at the end of the year. Right now, we’ve got two games to play and we need to do the best plan and execute the best we can these last two games. Then we’ll sit back and be able to assess all of the above.”